Likely cause of mystery child hepatitis outbreak found

UK experts believe they have identified the cause of the recent spate of mysterious liver problems affecting young children around the world.

Investigations suggest two common viruses made a comeback after pandemic lockdowns ended - and triggered the rare but very serious hepatitis cases.

More than 1,000 children - many under the age of five - in 35 countries are thought to have been affected. Some, including 12 in the UK, have needed a lifesaving liver transplant.

The two teams of researchers, from London and Glasgow, say infants exposed later than normal - because of Covid restrictions - missed out on some early immunity to an adenovirus, which normally causes colds and stomach upsets, and adeno-associated virus 2.

Noah, three, who lives in Chelmsford, Essex, needed an urgent liver transplant after becoming dangerously ill with hepatitis. His mother, Rebecca Cameron-McIntosh, says the experience has been devastating.

"He'd previously had nothing wrong with him," she says. "And for it to suddenly go so quickly. I think that's what kind of took us by surprise.

"We've just assumed it was one little problem that will get easily sorted out - but actually it just kept on snowballing."

Noah's recovery has been good - but he will need to take immunosuppressant drugs fo life, to stop his body rejecting the new liver he received.

Rebecca says: "There is something really heartbreaking about that because you go along following the rules, do what you are supposed to do to protect people that are vulnerable and then, in some horrible roundabout way, your own child has become more vulnerable because you did what you were supposed to do."

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Source: BBC News, 26 July 2022